


Tea and Toast

by falconieri



Series: Talk of Mutual Regard [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Language, M/M, Morning After, Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-27
Updated: 2014-06-27
Packaged: 2018-02-06 10:20:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1854487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falconieri/pseuds/falconieri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The morning after falling in together with Sherlock Holmes on the night of John Watson's wedding, Greg Lestrade has to make sense of the whole situation while nursing a hangover. Sherlock Holmes, meanwhile, likes posh tea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea and Toast

**Author's Note:**

> This follows from the scene outside John's wedding in "Smoking Is Bad for You". More to come in this universe; comments always appreciated. Un-betaed so I hope there are no major jarring mistakes. Hope it's to your liking.

Waking up was like a slow, sliding fall down a flight of stairs - choppy, painful and confusing. Greg was on his stomach hugging a pillow with the sheets tangled around his legs and he felt sore and nauseous. He was alone in bed, which slowly led him to his first coherent thought, which was to thank god that Sherlock had clearly fucked off somewhere. Greg felt subhuman and completely ill-equipped to deal with the man on the morning after. He slowly pulled himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, willing the room to stop spinning as he rubbed his face. He winced as he shifted slightly to fight the twinge in his arse. God forbid should Sherlock Holmes be a considerate lover - sure, Greg had been drunk and pushy, but what was the bastard’s excuse?

Gingerly, Greg made his way to the bathroom and dared to face himself in the mirror for a moment. Ha. Bad idea. Well-fucked and hungover was not the best look on a middle-aged man. Raising two fingers at his reflection, he turned on the water in the shower and stood waiting for it to run hot.

So. Last night. The naughty bits sort of blurred together in his head. The kiss in the garden had been weird and foreign but once they’d made their way back to Greg’s flat, Sherlock had been all over him, hot and demanding. Greg hadn’t been able to - nor to be honest, willing to - take charge and set the pace. So, intense as it had been, it was over quite quickly and Greg was pretty sure they had both passed out right after - even Sherlock. He sort of vaguely remembered waking in the middle of the night and yeah - Sherlock had definitely stayed for a bit at least. Whatever that meant.

What were the words Sherlock had used? Right, “mutual regard”. It had sounded clearer to him last night. In that moment, he’d known exactly what was being said but now he felt like he was trying to recall the tune to a song he’d heard only once. Bits and pieces of what they’d said to each other ran through his head as he noticed the steam rising from the water on his clammy skin and stepped into the shower.

He found it all a bit embarrassing now, in retrospect. He figured neither him nor Sherlock had spoken such long sentences to each other outside of work in years. But then again, there was the matter of the radio silence for two years in Sherlock’s absence, which was a lot of imagined conversations to carry around. And as it turns out, not just on his end.

Funny how not once had they referred to their past liaison after Sherlock had left rehab that last time. The posh one in Sussex. It had made sense then, of course, turning a new page. Now, it all seemed a bit bonkers - to have loved the man for the better part of a decade and just carried the knowledge in his back pocket year to year. Greg couldn’t help a huff of laughter at the thought, getting a bit of soapy water in his mouth. He could just hear Jules in his ear, oohing in a silly voice at hearing the word love. It had been a running gag between them when watching a film or TV together and one of the romantic leads would use the L word. It drove the girls mad. “Dad!” would shout Peggy, “Why can’t you be serious for like one second?” Because your father is a silly fool, sweetheart.

Mutual regard. God knows what that meant. Greg would have given an arm and a leg right then to get back that moment of clarity last night in the garden when he’d held Sherlock’s face in his hands and the young man had looked at him and smiled.

He turned off the water and shrugged on his bathrobe from the back of the door, running a towel through his hair. Sex was back on, at least; repeat performances seemed likely. There appeared to be some tolerance on Sherlock’s side of “sentiment” - the form of which remained yet undetermined. Greg had endured the man dying and coming back, for god’s sake. This, the possibility of something with Sherlock, shouldn’t be the ruin of him. If Sherlock was toying with him, or decided that it had been a whim better abandoned, Greg could take it. He could take it.

 

*******

 

 

His stomach rumbled as he pulled on some clean boxer shorts and a t-shirt, throwing the towel over his shoulder. He thought he could do some toast and tea, if not much else.

Walking over to the kitchen through the living room, he was suddenly startled out of his thoughts by a voice coming from the couch and gave an undignified yelp.

“Finally. I thought you’d surely drowned in the shower.”

“Sherlock! What the fuck are you doing here?”

Sherlock looked up from Greg’s laptop from his seat on the couch and raised an eyebrow, “Well, if this is how you treat your overnight guests, no wonder this flat has not seen much action since the divorce.” With that, he resumed tapping away on the keyboard, going back to whatever it was he was doing, wrapped up in Greg’s dressing gown which he never wore and which should have been tucked away in a drawer somewhere in his bedroom.

“Sorry - sorry, Christ, I was sure you’d left, you see, and - ” But Sherlock was clearly not listening. “Breakfast?”

No response. Sighing, he walked into the kitchen, checking the fridge and the cupboards. No eggs, which was just as well considering the state of his stomach. “Your options are cereal, bananas, or toast.”

“Oi! Sherlock!”

That got him an annoyed look. Greg shook the cereal box at him from the kitchen doorway. “Food?”

“Some tea would be fine.”

“Suit yourself.”

A couple of minutes later, Greg was settling on the couch next to Sherlock with a plate of toast and two mugs of tea. Sherlock took a sip of the tea and made a face.

“This is terrible. How do you manage to mess up something as basic as tea?” Holding the laptop with one hand and leaning forward to set the mug next to his feet on the table, Sherlock looked around in distaste and then drew the dressing gown tighter around his naked chest.

“I must say, Lestrade, you haven’t really come very far in bachelor life, have you? I’m surprised the toast isn’t burnt.” He was one to talk, Christ.

“Oh, I’m sorry, darling. I’ll be sure to call up John on his honeymoon to learn how you like your tea in the mornings,” Greg replied in an affected posh accent, ruining the effect by taking a messy bite from the piece of toast in his hands. “If he still remembers after all this time, of course. Plus, who knows what happened to your taste buds on your travels? Death’ll do that to you,” he said with a wink, brushing the crumbs from his t-shirt.

“Is this going to be a thing? The references to… to my time away? Because I’d rather prefer that it weren’t.” Meanwhile, he was still typing on the keyboard, what was that - a spreadsheet?

“What, you’d rather pretend you hadn’t horribly hurt the people who love you most in this world and fucked off to Tibet or wherever for two years while they mourned your death?”

Sherlock’s hands finally stilled but his eyes remained on the laptop screen. “Yes.”

Great. Now what? Greg asked himself, regretting his outburst immediately. Here is Sherlock, at last, sat on his couch, griping about his tea, having commandeered his laptop and his dressing gown - here he is, very much alive, and Greg can’t shut his gob and just take what is on offer. Especially when what is on offer is so much more than he had ever hoped for.

“Well, you’ve got yourself a deal if you can shut up about my divorce.”

“Must you belittle everything? I’m talking about my biggest failure, the point where I almost lost everything - you cannot compare it wi-”

“With my biggest failure?” Greg asked, pointing at his chest. “Yes I can.”

Sherlock looked pained, like he had just made a grave admission by calling Bart’s his biggest failure, like anyone off the street couldn’t tell him that very same thing. Greg continued,

“Also, isn’t this where you got into trouble last night? Nothing can compare to you and John, nothing can compare to your pain and suffering…” He could see Sherlock’s face twist in anger at that - good. Anything but that small, stricken look from before.

“Come off it, Sherlock. You fucked up. You fucked up big time and people got hurt. Join the club.” As he spoke, Greg realised he wasn’t just trying to distract Sherlock, that he really believed what he was saying.

“There is no point hiding from it or not talking about it - not when it’s this big. Look where hiding and not talking got us!” At that, Sherlock finally met his eyes. Emboldened, Greg grasped the back of Sherlock’s head. “I’m not looking to beat you over the head with your mistakes, lad, and I hope you can show me the same consideration. But I’d also hope that we wouldn’t pretend.”

Sherlock held his gaze for a beat, then he gave him a tight nod and made to turn to the computer screen on his lap. Greg reached over and flipped the laptop closed. “God help me, Sherlock, whatever you’re doing cannot be that important right now.”

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

Truth was, neither did he. Greg sighed and bent to pick up Sherlock’s mug. “Should have known you’d scoff at a cup of builder’s. I think I have some fancy earl grey somewhere that you’d like,” he said, getting up to head to the kitchen.

Sherlock stopped him with a hand on his arm and gave him a searching look. “Maybe some more toast, as well?”

Who was he kidding? He’d take it, of course he’d take it. So he smiled and leant down to give Sherlock a hug with the one arm holding the mug, dropping a kiss on the black mop of hair.

“Sounds good,” he replied, “You stay right there.”


End file.
